October is a VERY busy month in the college planning world. Not only is it crunch time for 12th graders trying to get their applications in early, with the CSS Profile opening on October 1 (and the FAFSA to follow suit next year), but also Financial Aid planning goes to Def Con 1 for their […]

In yet another ‘never a dull moment’ moment in higher ed, President Obama announced yesterday some pretty broad-sweeping changes to the Federal financial aid system.  Though these changes will not afffect current 12th graders – at least for this year — they will have a pretty large and fairly IMMEDIATE impact on many current 11th and 10th graders and the parents who […]

It’s Jill today, with a sideline report from the ongoing battle for market share between previous-upstart turned powerhouse and the current front-runner ACT and its soon-to-be-re-tooled rival and former market leader, The SAT. And.. me thinks the ACT has taken round 1… because.. They’re able to implement.  You see, the SAT continues to struggle with a rather messy roll out of its new and completely overhauled version (scoring scales were […]

What You Can Do To Prevent The Market From Making A Mess of Your College Plan! Well I’m not sure where to start today because there is A LOT that I had wanted to talk about this week – like the fact that the College Board finally released scoring tables for the newly designed SAT, […]

It’s an odd juxtaposition that just as the summer season begins to cool down (in most of the country anyway), college ‘application season’  and its accompanying application anxiety heats up everywhere else.  This particular dispatch is coming to you from way above sea level, at the University of Colorado, in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, where Peter and I had a great visit with Taylor Stratton, the Admissions Counselor […]

 The ‘New Look’ Common App (below) and FSUs application went Live yesterday (Aug 1)! 69 new schools (including Tulane, St. John’s and NSU) have joined the 500 or so other colleges that have already migrated to The Common App.  Those familiar can see that the homepage has gotten an overhaul and so too have quite a […]

Earlier this week George Washington University became the latest highly selective school to announce that it will no longer require standardized test scores (SAT or ACT) for admission. Test-optional admissions policies are nothing new – we’ve been talking/writing about the growing trend among competitive schools to have some type of test waiver for years.  That said, we’re seeing perhaps […]

Last week Jill and I visited Smith College in Northampton, MA, one of the few remaining all-women colleges in the US (according to Wikipedia, there are 48 such schools).  Smith has some personal appeal to me – my mother graduated from Smith way back in 19xx (I won’t embarrass my mom, but it was sometime before 1969 when […]

I just recorded a quick (2-1/2 minute) video about a major change to the financial aid formula. You can get instant access to it here.  Unfortunately, the change – which was recently made ‘public’ in the Congressional Federal Register reduces the Asset Protection Allowance, the amount the government ‘allows’ you to have saved without your savings negatively impacting […]

Since the Grateful Dead were kind enough to host their 3-day ‘Fare Thee Well’ Retirement party in Chicago on the same weekend as our (as in mine and Pete’s) 21st Wedding Anniversary, we not only got to visit with the Admissions and Financial Aid team at Northwestern University (which was planned), but we also got to spend a long and […]